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Acerbic Chicago music icon Ralph Shapey gets his due
When the Music Institute of Chicago pays tribute to Ralph Shapey on Saturday 8, it will recognize the composer and conductor who essentially jump-started Chicago’s new-music scene. Shapey, who died in 2003, came to the University of Chicago in 1964 and founded the Contemporary Chamber Players that same year. The uncompromising trailblazer left behind a catalog of more than 100 works that reflect his volatile voice. He also remains the only composer to have the Pulitzer Board nullify his nomination for the Pulitzer Prize, on the grounds that his work wasn’t accessible enough.
“He was a very feisty man,” says pianist Abraham Stokman, who’s organizing the upcoming concert and was in the CCP under Shapey. “He was no-nonsense, not the comfortable, genial musician.” In a world where endearing oneself to performers and one’s fellow composers is the norm, Shapey “would call something bullshit if he didn’t like it,” Stokman says. “He wasn’t above telling you to fuck off.”
Playing and studying under Shapey left its mark on many members of the scene, including composer Shulamit Ran and conductor and composer Cliff Colnot. Ran came to the U. of C. in 1974 and she then studied with Shapey, an unusually respectful act in the status-conscious university community. She is now the artistic director of CCP, now known as Contempo.
“I was hearing the students rave about their lessons with [Shapey],” Ran says. He was astonished and “dropped to the floor,” she says, when she approached him for lessons since she was already a strong composer. “There was no reason for abstaining from an experience that would be enlightening,” she says simply.
Colnot studied conducting with Shapey, specifically how to sort out and conduct the intricate rhythms found in much of contemporary music. Shapey made his conducting debut at 16 in his hometown Philadelphia, and had to receive a break from basic training in World War II to return home to conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra when he was 21, says soprano Elsa Charlston, his widow. She also premiered three of his works.
Shapey’s conducting capabilities came to the rescue in 1991 when he stepped in to lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of his Concerto Fantastique. Written to celebrate the dual centenaries of the CSO and the U. of C., the nearly hour-long work was almost tabled when Daniel Barenboim developed an ear infection. Shapey led the rehearsals and the concerts.
Unlike the majority of premieres that come and go with little notice, this one didn’t. On the archival recording made for broadcast on WFMT in the CSO’s archives, the boos compete with the applause at the Concerto’s conclusion, and the Chicago Tribune’s review reported that many people walked out between movements.
The music jury for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize in Music, with three composers, unanimously recommended Concerto Fantastique for the award. The standard practice is for the jury to submit three works so that the Pulitzer Board can choose a winner. But that year, its members believed Concerto Fantastique was the only work that deserved the award.
The Pulitzer Board disagreed and gave the award to a different composer. The jury wrote a public statement saying that the board wasn’t qualified to overrule them, and the board responded that the prizes “are enhanced by having, in addition to the professional’s point of view, the layman’s or consumer’s point of view.”
Shapey was “in shock,” about the decision, says Charlston. But history can have the final say. Charlston mentions future plans of Shapey’s longtime champions the Juilliard String Quartet to play his works on their upcoming tour, and Ran says that the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players are interested in him, as well. The Pulitzer people can fuck off.
Stokman and others celebrate Shapey Saturday 8.
